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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634745">I'm Pickin' Up Good Vibrations</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness'>Dredfulhapiness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Charlie is jack's cool aunt, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Sam gets a dog, Team Free Will (Supernatural), painting a room is something that can be so personal, this fic is preemptive but I'm posting it anyway, this is just my dream fix-it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:21:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first dinner, they shove all of the library tables together last supper style. They all sit elbow-to-elbow, bumping shoulders when they reach for their drinks or another helping of potatoes. Bobby tells a joke, and half of the table explodes into unrestrained laughter. After a few seconds of Telephone, the other half of the table catches on and laughs, too. </p><p>Jody and the girls have shoved in beside Bobby and across Charlie. Kaia and Claire sit so close together it’s hard to tell where their jackets end and they become two different people. Jack is tucked in beside Cas, who’s taken a seat across from Claire and is squinting at the cell phone she's holding out to him.</p><p> </p><p>  <b>Or, the ending they all deserve</b></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel &amp; Jack Kline &amp; Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>96</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm posting the first half of this before the finale airs because I feel like we might need it. Sure hope we don't, though.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They stare down at Jack’s unconscious form and all they can do is wait. Dean paces along the shelves, Sam bounces his knee. He can feel the power coming off of Jack in waves. Chuck, Lucifer, and Michael did more than supercharge him— he’s been irradiated.</p><p> </p><p>“This was a shitty idea,” Dean says to a jug of lamb’s blood. “What if we can’t bring him back?”</p><p> </p><p>“He wanted to do it,” Sam reminds, looking back down at Jack. He’s already paling. “And Cas took that deal for him, I mean… How were we supposed to tell him no?”</p><p> </p><p>“And if he dies, too? Then, what, we’re just down two—“ Dean cuts himself off by running a hand down his face.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t finish his sentence, and he doesn’t need to.</p><p> </p><p>All they can do is wait, so that’s what they do.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Jack stares into the darkness and he waits. Existing like this is different than existing on Earth. On Earth, he can feel his body living: his heart pumps, there’s a faint rush in his ears, joints meet resistance when he moves them. Here, he feels as Nothing as the Nothing around him. Like air, or fog.</p><p> </p><p>He feels something move behind him, and he squares his shoulders and tightens his jaw. He summons the commanding stature of Sam, the courage of Dean, the bluntness of Cas. With elements of the three of them, he supposes, he’s as ready for battle as anyone can be.</p><p> </p><p>“Why can’t you people just let me sleep?” The Empty demands, and Jack turns around.</p><p> </p><p>It isn’t bothering to look human anymore. It’s towering above him, glistening black with beady red eyes.</p><p> </p><p>(“Alright, now what are you going to say when you find it?” Dean had asked when Jack had taken a seat.</p><p> </p><p>Jack frowned up at Dean. “My name is Jack Kline, you killed my father, prepare to die— That doesn’t really work, <em>I </em>killed my father.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam’s lips twitched, “He’s right.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s nice to see him smile, even as he’d pictured Lucifer’s burned body.</p><p> </p><p>Dean coughed. “Well, then, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”)</p><p> </p><p>Jack waves. “Hello. You have something I need.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Jack sits up with a gasp, and Sam’s heart drops to his feet. Dean rounds the corner so fast he knocks a box off the shelf. It clatters to the ground and spreads salt all over the floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Jack, hey—“ Sam grips his elbow to ground him. Jack hovers in the air for a dazed moment, life rushing back into him. Sam knows the feeling, the sudden rush in his ears, the crack of his joints.</p><p> </p><p>“How did it go?” Dean asks. Jack blinks at him.</p><p> </p><p>“I think… Well?”</p><p> </p><p>“You <em>think?” </em></p><p> </p><p>“We made a deal,” Jack says. Sam and Dean exchange a worried look.</p><p> </p><p>A deal is what got them into this mess. More specifically, a <em>series </em>of deals is what got them into this mess.</p><p> </p><p>“What kind of deal?” They ask at the same time, a similar edge of wariness to their voices.</p><p> </p><p>Jack attempts to placate them with his normal, neutral smile but it just makes Sam’s stomach plummet further into the ground. “He can’t be an angel,” He explains. “Because that would just keep The Empty awake.”</p><p> </p><p>“What the fuck are you talking about, kid?”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s talking about me.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam and Dean nearly slam their heads together when they whirl around. Standing behind them, wearing the same trench coat and serious expression as always.</p><p> </p><p>Cas returns, and for just a moment, all the air leaves the room.</p><p> </p><p>There’s no power to his entrance. No flashing lights or shadow wings— it’s just Cas standing in the middle of the room where he’d died, somehow managing the same theatrics he’d mastered with Grace.</p><p> </p><p>He breaks the stunned silence by saying, “Hello, Dean.”</p><p> </p><p>And Dean breaks his own by saying, “What the hell was that, Cas?”</p><p> </p><p>They hug, and it isn’t a goodbye. Their palms leave no scars or blood. They’re both alive. “Don’t ever pull that shit again,” Dean warns, just loud enough for him to hear, and Cas swallows.</p><p> </p><p>Cas pulls away, and his shoulders drop when he meets Jack’s eye.</p><p> </p><p>“The deal you made—“ Jack says carefully, and Cas nods.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>Jack closes his eyes for just a moment too long to be blinking. His cheek caves in where he sinks his teeth into it. He squares his jaw. “I’m glad we got you back.”</p><p> </p><p>Cas hugs him, too, and Jack holds on for dear life. This is how it should be— how it always <em>should </em>have been, without Michael, or God, or Lucifer. “I’m glad, too,” He says, and Jack nods into his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>Cas steps back, again, and this time he meets Sam’s eye.</p><p> </p><p>They don’t hug as desperately as the others, but it’s equally deliberate.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s good to see you,” Sam mumbles into his ear, and Cas pulls him just a little bit tighter.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“Dean,” Cas says, and in the dark of the kitchen, backlit only by the dim hall light, he looks terrifying. He looks, in a lot of ways, the same as he did the first time they’d properly met.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Dean greets, mouth full. And then, because he feels like he’s supposed to say something else, he holds up the bag of bread and asks, “Want some?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, no thank you.” He hovers on the other side of the kitchen island. He breathes. It sounds measured. He regards Dean carefully. “Jack told me what you did.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean hesitates, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “You’re gonna need to be more specific.”</p><p> </p><p>“About Chuck.” Cas is human now, but Dean could swear his eyes glint. “You didn’t kill him.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean purses his lips. “Didn’t need to. Thought I’d give him a taste of his own medicine. Humanity’s a bitch.” He remembers his company and falters. “I mean—“</p><p> </p><p>“Not always,” Cas says. “Though, I had forgotten… How needy a human body is.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Maybe Chuck will grow to regret his actions.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean rolls his eyes. “A lot of good that does us.”</p><p> </p><p>There are countless universes gone because of Chuck, destroyed in the same way a black hole devours. Sams, and Deans, and Cases— They were the only ones left, now. Most of it is a relief. With Chuck gone, Dean didn’t have to worry about any more apocalypses or Heavenly coups, but it didn’t negate the damage. They’d lost so many people. For plot development.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m proud of you,” Cas says, and it makes Dean’s gut lurch. He disguises it by shoving another bite of ham and cheese into his mouth. “You made the right decision.”</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t kill <em>people,” </em>he says, like it’s as simple as that. “Chuck’s just a dude.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right.” Cas echoes, “Just a dude.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean sniffs. “Doesn’t your human body need sleep?”</p><p> </p><p>“It will shortly.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean stands and pushes his chair in. He throws his plate in the sink. “Then I’ll see you in the morning.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>For the first dinner, they shove all of the library tables together last supper style. They all sit elbow-to-elbow, bumping shoulders when they reach for their drinks or another helping of potatoes. Bobby tells a joke, and half of the table explodes into unrestrained laughter. After a few seconds of Telephone, the other half of the table catches on and laughs, too.</p><p> </p><p>Jody and the girls have shoved in beside Bobby and across Charlie. Kaia and Claire sit so close together it’s hard to tell where their jackets end and they become two different people. Jack is tucked in beside Cas, who’s taken a seat across from Claire and is squinting at the cell phone she's holding out to him.</p><p> </p><p>Donna is down the table from Sam, and she’s cooing over baby pictures Garth shows her.</p><p> </p><p>Dean leans back in his seat and his chair knocks into Sam’s. The expression on his face is so overwhelmingly neutral.</p><p> </p><p>Sam sits across from Eileen, tries to keep up with the words of people whose mouths Eileen can’t see to read, also tries to shovel bites of food into his mouth between bouts of excited yelling. His ASL has gotten better in the past year, but he’s still bad enough that Eileen laughs at him a few times.</p><p> </p><p>After everything, after losing her twice, Sam thinks he could watch her laugh forever. She corrects him with a crooked grin, and reaches across the table to move his thumb over, or twist his wrist, and the pads of her fingers are warm.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not the best interpreter,” She tells him after the third time she’d had to take his palm between her thumb and forefinger.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll get better,” He promises. He turns her hand over in his, locks their thumbs together, and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “I’ve got time.”</p><p> </p><p>To his right, more laughter breaks out. Sam and Eileen snap their attention back to the rest of the group.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright,” Dean is saying around a mouthful of meatloaf. “So we show up to the park and these people are dressed up. I’m talking fantasy shit, straight out of Lord of the Rings.”</p><p> </p><p>“We got in trouble,” Sam chimes in. “For—“ He clears his throat. “For being out of character.”</p><p> </p><p>“And they tell us we’re gonna have to answer to the queen. So we hike <em>into </em>the woods, to plead our case to some fictional queen, and when we get there the queen is—“ Dean pauses for dramatic effect, then he makes direct eye contact with Charlie.</p><p> </p><p>She blinks and points to herself. “Who, me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Keep in mind,” Sam says. “The last time we saw you, your only request was that we not contact you again.”</p><p> </p><p><em>“And</em> we walked in on you getting down with a fairy.”</p><p> </p><p>“I had <em>game.” </em>Charlie sounds proud.</p><p> </p><p>“You couldn’t even flirt with a dude,” Dean says, “Don’t get too excited.”</p><p> </p><p>“Dean sure could, though,” Sam points out nonchalantly, and someone— Donna?— <em>whoops.</em></p><p> </p><p>“Hey! I’m telling the story.” Dean glares at him, and Sam has to bite his lip to keep from laughing in his face.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Charlie agrees, “I want to hear more about this fairy.”</p><p> </p><p>“Actually, this story is about me being a war hero,” Dean says, and Sam can’t help rolling his eyes. “I was awfully inspiring.”</p><p> </p><p>“You were a <em>dork,” </em>Sam corrects.</p><p> </p><p>“A <em>dork.” </em>Dean stares at him, incredulous. “Do you really want to go there?” He puts his beer down, and Sam steels himself. “What did you order the other day when we got coffee?”</p><p> </p><p>Sam keeps his mouth shut and Castiel, the trench-coated traitor, says, “I believe it was a vanilla latte.”</p><p> </p><p>“A vanilla latte,” Dean repeats, like he’s presenting a final piece of evidence in court.</p><p> </p><p>“And it was iced,” Eileen says, and Sam shoots her a bewildered look. She mouths, <em>Sorry, </em>but her eyes sparkle unapologetically.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought you were telling a story, Dean,” Jack says, and bless that kid.</p><p> </p><p>Dean tries to pass off the speech he gave, he really does. He repeats his own words confidently until a roll hits him in the face.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s from Braveheart, ya idjit,” Bobby scolds. “Who did you think you were fooling?”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s Braveheart?” Jack asks innocently, and then winces when the table shouts over each other to rag on him.</p><p> </p><p>Sam holds his glass up to Dean, and he must understand because he grins and taps their drinks together. The beer slides down his throat and Sam thinks, <em>finally free.</em></p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Someone demands a speech just as they start moving to gather their plates. It starts as a rumble, then rises to a chant. Dean just raises his beer, says, “To free will,” and winks.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“I think I have a job,” Eileen says as they get ready for bed. She’s wearing one of his shirts as pajamas, and the bottom hem falls just above her knees. “If you want to come.”</p><p> </p><p>“What are we looking at?”</p><p> </p><p>“Two people dead in Pennsylvania. Their hearts were missing.”</p><p> </p><p>“A werewolf.”</p><p> </p><p>Eileen hums. She tilts her head and widens her eyes. “What do you say? Want to come kill it with me?”</p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t escape him him that he’s thinking so passively of a werewolf. That after Chuck, and the Leviathans, and Lucifer, a lupine amalgamation feels like a vacation. A gun, some silver bullets, and the job is done.</p><p> </p><p>Sam looks at Eileen, perched on the edge of his bed, hair still damp from the shower.</p><p> </p><p>It still feels like a dream, being alive. Having her here, with his biggest problem being a werewolf running free in Pennsylvania. When was the last time he had that?</p><p> </p><p>(Had he ever had that? Did college count when he was always bracing himself for the phone call. About Dean, or Dad, or both.)</p><p> </p><p>“We can leave in the morning,” Sam says, and Eileen’s face lights up. She scooches herself up to the headboard, and leans into him when he sits down.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>That night, Sam dreams of fire and blood on his pillow, and he wakes with Eileen’s hair in his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“Okay…” Jack holds his hands out in front of himself. He’s blocking the doorway, face alight with youth and untethered joy.</p><p> </p><p>“Jesus, kid, what is it— hey!” Dean cuts himself off when Sam elbows him. “What was that for?”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s up, Jack,” Sam asks, ignoring Dean’s pointed glare.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think?” Jack steps out of the way and motions to the wall above his bed, where he’s hung up a Star Wars poster he’d snuck into the cart on their latest Walmart run.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the only personalized thing in the room if you don’t count the sweater hanging over the back of the chair in the corner.</p><p> </p><p>(Sam tries not to think about why he’d hesitated to decorate in the past.)</p><p> </p><p>Dean raises an eyebrow. “This is what you called us in here for? A poster?”</p><p> </p><p>“It looks great, Jack,” Cas says. “You’re like a real American teenager.”</p><p> </p><p>Jack beams.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Dean stares into his bedroom and nearly chooses to store the bucket of paint in the storage room. There’s a lot of things to push into the center of the room, his bed, dresser, chest of weapons. But he’d already spent an hour looking through paint chips at Home Depot, and really the only step left was to actually <em>paint </em>the damn room.</p><p> </p><p>He starts by taking down the guns he’d mounted on the wall. He unscrews the mounts, and he thinks back to when they’d first moved into the bunker.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the first room he’s really had. Whenever he tries to remember their house in Lawrence, all he can picture is an ever-growing rotation of cheap motels.</p><p> </p><p>He’d considered Baby home before the bunker, with her melted army men and faded leather seats.</p><p> </p><p>He cracks open the paint and stirs it. This is no different than any of the odd jobs he’s taken over the years, save for the fact that he’s the one who picked out the color.</p><p> </p><p>(and that this is his room, in his home, and he’s going to see it every morning and every night and there’s nothing threatening to take that away from him.)</p><p> </p><p>He tapes where the floor and the wall meet, the sharp corners of the doorframe. It’s a ritual like any other.</p><p> </p><p>A figure appears in the doorway. Dean glances up, then looks back at where his paintbrush is dragging down the wall.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like help?” Cas asks just above the sound of Immigrant Song.</p><p> </p><p>Dean gives him a crooked smile. “You don’t think I can do it myself?”</p><p> </p><p>Cas frowns. “I didn’t say that.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean shrugs. “There’s another paintbrush in the bag,” He says, motioning behind him to where the package was open on his bed.</p><p> </p><p>Cas nods stiffly. Dean hears the plastic crinkling and turns back to the wall.</p><p> </p><p>He’s expecting it to be awkward, because it’s <em>been </em>awkward. Ever since Cas came back, they’ve been playing a fucking game of freeze tag, catching each other’s eye and clamming up until someone else shows up or the subject gets changed. It’s conversation suicide, really, because Dean doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up— they all say dumb things when they’re about to die, and he doesn’t want to hear Cas tell him that that’s all it was. Something said out of desperation. Final repentance.</p><p> </p><p>(Dean can’t hear that, actually. That none of it was true. That, maybe, Dean’s hands were made to be covered in blood. That Cas doesn’t actually think he’s a good person, never has, never will.)</p><p> </p><p>Except, it’s not awkward. There’s an ease about Cas, even as he stares at the paint bucket and tries to work out how he’s going to get the paint to the wall without making a mess of the floor. He ends up following Dean’s lead, holding a rag under the paintbrush, bopping his head to the beat of the music. There’s a few songs he knows, Dean can hear him humming under his breath, content, and Dean forgets for a second that they’ve just saved the world, or that Cas had been dead, or that there had been rushed, deathbed confessions in the room down the hall from here.</p><p> </p><p>They fill in the last corner, and relief escapes Dean’s chest like a breath.</p><p> </p><p>Dean takes a step back, hands on his hips to admire his handiwork. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and paint on his palms, but it doesn’t really matter because it looks…</p><p> </p><p>Patchy, even after three coats of forest green. He grumbles as much, looking into the now-empty paint bucket.</p><p> </p><p>“It looks… Intentional,” Cas lies. “It can be an accent wall.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, HGTV,” Dean snarks. Then he gets a good look at Cas. “Uh, you have…”</p><p> </p><p>He grabs a rag he’d tossed on top of his dresser.</p><p> </p><p>When he wipes away the trail of paint off of Cas’s cheek, he feels his jaw go slack. He pulls away, like he’s been burnt, and Cas looks behind him, at the fucked up wall, and Dean’s chest tightens.</p><p> </p><p>Right. Freeze tag.</p><p> </p><p>“I should—“ Dean says just as Cas starts, “Can we—“</p><p> </p><p>They both stare at each other.</p><p><br/>
“Dean,” Cas says his name like it’s a weight dropping from his mouth. “We should talk.”</p><p> </p><p>And Dean knows he’s right. They <em>should, </em>after Cas died for him. After Cas said… but the words <em>we should talk </em>just about make Dean break out in hives. But how can he say no to Cas, after everything. After Dean has heard his voice bouncing around in his head for weeks. After tiptoeing, and avoiding, and handprints. Isn’t Cas worth a rash?</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not known for my communication skills,” Dean says.</p><p> </p><p>“I know.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean clears his throat. He wipes his hands on the rag, and then just holds it tight.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, Cas…” He tenses. The lines in his forehead deepen. He’s readying himself, Dean realizes. Stabilizing. Dean swallows. “I should have said something. Instead of just… But there was a lot happening, and you kept talking, and I— My brain doesn’t work that fast.”</p><p> </p><p>“I understand,” Cas says. “I wasn’t expecting… anything, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m trying to—“ He sighs. Opens his mouth, closes it. Tries to coerce his tongue into lasso-ing his thoughts. “I thought I’d lost you. Again. You know, it felt like some point of no return bullshit, and I tried to… I can’t picture a future <em>without </em>you there. It felt like that was <em>it, </em>y’know?”</p><p> </p><p>Cas looks at him with his trademark, bug-eyed stare. He licks his lip and takes a sharp breath in. “Dean,” He starts, “I have been alive for four hundred billion years. I’ve witnessed every human extinction— Aided in some of them, but you were the first piece of proof that humans are more than pieces on a chess board you clear when you’re losing. Without you, there would <em>be</em> no future to imagine. Without you, there would be no world, or people, or—“</p><p> </p><p>He’s interrupted by Dean pulling him in for a tight hug. Cas smells like paint, and laundry detergent. He tentatively wraps his arms around Dean’s back.</p><p> </p><p>“… Dean?” Cas asks cautiously.</p><p> </p><p>Dean swallows. He digs his fingers into the meat of Cas’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>A realization strikes him there, in the middle of his bedroom while they’re both splattered with paint and AC/DC is drumming along in the background.</p><p> </p><p>“I should have said it back.”</p><p> </p><p>Cas’s breath catches.</p><p> </p><p>He pulls his head back, mouth open, ready to ask a question, or say Dean’s name, or make another connection to some bible story Dean had never sat through Sunday school to learn, so Dean just kisses him to preemptively shut him up.</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, it’s just Dean against stiff, chapped lips, until Cas goes slack in his arms, and puts a hand on the back of Dean’s neck.</p><p> </p><p>Dean is out of time, in a different universe where it’s just him, and Cas, and fumbling hands. He feels like a teenager again, underneath the bleachers, or behind the cover of the vending machine. Except, he’s not. He’s standing in his bedroom, in front of drying paint, while music plays from a speaker hooked up to his phone.</p><p> </p><p>They pull apart, and Dean’s a little dazed. Swept off his feet, like some kind of storybook princess, a damsel in distress, and he’s about to make a joke about it except Cas is staring at him with wider eyes than usual and whatever he’s going to say goes out the window when his mouth dries up.</p><p> </p><p>“You are a very good kisser,” Cas says, and it breaks the spell enough for Dean to blink.</p><p> </p><p>He breathes out. They’re standing so close together that their shoes are hugging. “You’re not so bad yourself,” He manages, and Cas breaks into a smile.</p><p> </p><p>Cas’s mouth works like a loose hinge. He says, “I still love you.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean says, “I love you, too.”</p><p> </p><p>The world doesn’t end.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Dean contemplates going back to the store to get more paint, but he stares at it long enough that fondness grows like a weed in his heart.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>The second dinner isn’t scheduled, it just happens. Donna is passing through, and Bobby turns up unannounced, and soon there’s a bunker full of hunters. The kids have taken up one of the tables in the library and covered it with a myriad of art supplies: crayons, and markers, and coloring books. One of them even has those dot markers that Dean had always wanted as a child. They’d been advertised late into the night on old motel cable.</p><p> </p><p>Eileen and Donna are deep in conversation at another table, and Eileen laughs so hard that she doubles over. Beside Dean, Sam is watching her with a faint smile.</p><p> </p><p>He’s had a glow about him lately. Normally, Dean would make some joke about how he’d finally gotten laid and it had knocked loose the stick stuck up his ass, but he doesn’t want to break whatever zen has come over Sam. It’s too nice to see him like this, in puppy love or whatever.</p><p> </p><p>Someone passes on Dean’s right, nearly knocks him over. He turns only to get body-slammed again.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re such a bitch!” He hears Alex yell, half-hearted. She bolts to the far side of the spiral staircase. Claire squares off against her. Dean’s about to open his mouth when he’s side-lined one more time, this time by Jack.</p><p> </p><p>“Jesus— <em>watch where you’re going!”</em></p><p> </p><p><em>“I’m </em>a bitch?” Claire counters. She laughs mirthlessly. “Oh my God, you’re such a pus—“</p><p> </p><p>“There’s kids here!” Jack chokes out. He motions over to the arts and crafts table.</p><p> </p><p>Alex offers a glance behind him, but Claire just bristles.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you fighting about?” Dean asks, even though he isn’t sure he wants to know.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing,” Alex says, worsening his suspicions.</p><p> </p><p>“I got her a tinder match,” Claire says.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Oh my God, you suck!”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Uh,” Dean says. He looks to Jack. “You got this?”</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>“Great. All your problem, then.” Dean turns back to Sam. <em>“Kids.”</em></p><p> </p><p>Sam looks just as uncomfortable as Dean feels. “Is she really old enough to be on tinder?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m trying not to think about it.”</p><p> </p><p>It makes him feel old.</p><p> </p><p>When was the last time he and Sam had acted like that? Hunting each other down for useless annoyances.</p><p> </p><p>(Dean feels the steel chill of a gun in his hand and he clenches his fist until he’s warmed it back up.)</p><p> </p><p>“He’s your soulmate!” Claire yells, and Alex responds, “He collects stamps! I hate you so much!” And Jack urges, “Can’t you just ignore the message?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean drags his gaze elsewhere, to where Bobby is standing alone, hunt-and-pecking out a message on his cellphone. He grumbles, rapid-fires on the backspace button, starts over again. Then he pulls a flask out of his jacket and takes a swig. Dean’s eyes catch on it, and he elbows Sam to get his attention.</p><p> </p><p>“There something I can help you with?” Bobby asks when he looks up and catches them staring. He wipes his lips with his sleeve and raises an eyebrow at them.</p><p> </p><p>“No, sir,” Dean says with a hint of a smile. “It’s just been a while since I’ve seen that.”</p><p> </p><p>“A flask?” He holds it up with an unconvinced frown.</p><p> </p><p>“That one,” Sam clarifies. “Our Bobby had the same one.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean’s lips twitch. “Haunted the damn thing.”</p><p> </p><p>Bobby raises it in a toast. “He had good taste.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“I need to talk to you about something,” Dean says. He’s straggling near the doorway, one hand shoved into his pants pocket. It’s how Sam knows whatever he’s about to say is serious.</p><p> </p><p>He pulls his shoelaces tight and raises his eyebrows. “Okay… What’s up?”</p><p> </p><p>“I talked to Cas,” Dean says, and Sam thinks, <em>Finally.</em></p><p> </p><p>(He remembers The End.</p><p> </p><p>They were on an empty planet. He’d called them all, Jodie, Garth, Alex, Claire, Kaia. He hadn’t gotten a single response. As far as they could tell, they were the last people left alive.</p><p> </p><p>The bunker felt relatively the same, though. Sam walked through the hallway and despite the gaping holes where Cas should be, he managed to feel at least a little bit at home. He’d made his way into the study to find Dean staring down the barrel of a bottle of jack. Any other time, Sam might scold him for his vices, but it seemed as good a time as any.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s the kid?”</p><p> </p><p>“In his room. He’s... He needs some space.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean closed his eyes and nodded. He wiped a hand over his face and cleared his throat.</p><p> </p><p>“How are <em>you</em> doing?” Sam asked cautiously. Dean had his fingers around his glass of whisky, but he hadn’t taken a sip.</p><p> </p><p>Dean looked up at him, then back down at his drink. “How do you think?” He countered, and that’s how Sam knew it was bad.</p><p> </p><p>He pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.</p><p> </p><p>“He said he loves me,” Dean said after a grueling silence. “Before he...” The Winchesters are no stranger to death, but Dean’s voice caught on the word.</p><p> </p><p>Sam furrowed his brow. “He said he loves you,” He repeated, and Dean finally threw back his drink. Sam sighed. “Wow.” Then, “What did you say?”</p><p> </p><p>The regret darkened Dean’s face. “I didn’t— I didn’t know what to say?”</p><p> </p><p>“So you just...” Sam swallowed down the phrase, <em>left him hanging.</em> </p><p> </p><p>Dean glared at him, the unfinished colloquialism understood. “A lot was going on, Sam. I had Billy on one side, Cas monologing on the other, I thought we were about to <em>die.”</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Jesus.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“He can’t exactly help us now.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam didn’t mean to, but he laughed at that. Dean held up his empty glass.</p><p> </p><p>“To Cas and Eileen.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam suppressed a shudder. He’d been trying not to think about how cold the cement was below Eileen’s cellphone. So he asked, instead, leaning forward, “Is it like that? Like with Eileen?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean swallowed. He tapped his glass on the table top, capped the bottle, and said, “I’m heading to bed.")</p><p> </p><p>This conversation is expected, but Sam would be lying if he said he’d expected it so soon. He clears his throat and stands. “Okay. Uh… What did… You guys say?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean stares at him. He swallows down a laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“Dean?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“What did you and Cas talk about?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean rubs at the back of his neck. “I… Uh… I didn’t leave him hanging,” He finally chokes out, just as Sam’s about to remind him that <em>he’d </em>started the conversation.</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t— Oh.” Sam blinks. Sniffs. “Well, that’s— That’s great, Dean.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>It’s Sam’s idea, but no one complains. He puts his open laptop on the table and waits until the others go silent and look at him expectantly to clear his throat and say, “I’ve got an idea.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s never good,” Dean says.</p><p> </p><p>“Eileen is moving in,” Sam starts. “And, you know, I think it would be nice if we could all…” He opens his laptop to a Youtube video. In front of a white background, a man is making hand gestures as captions show up on the screen.</p><p> </p><p>“You want us to learn sign language?” Dean clarifies. Jack grins.</p><p> </p><p>“I think that’s a great idea, Sam,” Cas says before Dean can stick his foot in his own mouth. “It would be nice to be able to communicate fully with her.”</p><p> </p><p>They learn together and separate. Sam has a long way to go, but he guides them through the basics— the alphabet, simple phrases. They try to fill in the rest themselves.</p><p> </p><p>Dean hasn’t studied for anything since high school. He remembers, vaguely, never-ending nights in motel rooms where Sam had tried to coach him through math worksheets. He’d been young then, probably still in middle school, chugging a cup of coffee on the way to the bus stop because he’d needed to teach his idiot brother how to FOIL or divide fractions or whatever. He’d never held it against him, though, because he was Sammy, and his kindness tended to outweigh any inconvenience Dean had tried to throw his way.</p><p> </p><p>He’d been thinking about college, even back then. Dean is sure of it. He’d take odd jobs raking leaves and painting fences, but Dean doesn’t remember ever seeing the money. It’s probably been long-since eaten by the black hole of Stanford.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re doing it wrong, Dean,” Cas scolds one night after everyone else has gone to bed. He repeats the sentence, <em>Do you have a knife or a gun? </em>And it’s the conjunctions that keep tripping Dean up. The ordering of the sentence. Teaching his hands how to communicate instead of destroy.</p><p> </p><p>“Jesus, Cas, I’m not a fucking linguist.”</p><p> </p><p>Cas scoffs at him. “You’ve saved the world and you can’t learn a few words in sign language?”</p><p> </p><p>And, okay, he’s got a point. He glares at Dean, annoyed, and in the faint whispers of his mind Dean hears, <em>You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in.</em></p><p> </p><p>He almost asks Cas to say that in sign language. Instead he just signs,</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>They try again, and again, and again.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Dean passes Jack in the hallway. Signs, <em>Have you seen Cas?</em></p><p> </p><p>Jack pauses, tilts his head like a damn dog, signs, <em>See? </em>The opposite way Dean had.</p><p> </p><p>Dean rolls his eye, mimics Jack’s action. He manages to scrape together Jack’s response and heads into the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Studying with Cas is a lot different than studying with Sam used to be. For one thing, there’s no imminent threat of bedbugs. For another, Cas takes less shit.</p><p> </p><p>There was always a part of Sam that believe in Dean more than Dean was ever capable of believing in himself. A part that urged him on, slid a crudely edited essay across the table to him and said, “Re-write it.” He threatened, a decent amount of times, to let Dean turn in whatever shit paper he’d come up with, but they were all empty threats. He wanted Dean to succeed— believed that he <em>could </em>succeed.</p><p> </p><p>Cas is different and the same. Maybe Dean is just older. Maybe Cas knows where to draw limits just before a fight breaks out.</p><p> </p><p>When Dean draws nearer to quitting, Cas raises an eyebrow, challenges him silently.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not doing this for yourself,” He reminds, and it’s just enough to make Dean bite.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>They’re confident enough by the third week Eileen’s lived with them.</p><p> </p><p>Breakfast has become something of a tradition in the bunker, even with Sam breathing down all their necks about eating less red meat, less sugar, less salt, fat, egg yolks. He has, for the most part, resigned himself to drinking his smoothies— he puts <em>spinach </em>in them— all on his own.</p><p> </p><p>“C’mon, Jack,” He urges one morning before Eileen has woken, “you love smoothies.”</p><p> </p><p>Jack grimaces. “The last time I drank a smoothie it drained me of my power.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam clicks his tongue and takes the glass for himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh—“ Cas interrupts. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“We had a housekeeper for a little while,” Dean says absently, sipping at his coffee. “We had to let her go.”</p><p> </p><p>“She locked me and Dean in the storage room.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean winces. “You know, there are some things we can just keep between us.”</p><p> </p><p>Eileen marches into the kitchen still half-asleep. Her hair is pulled into a messy bun, and she’s got a Monday morning scowl painting her face. She’s wearing one of Sam’s shirts and a pair of boxer shorts.</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning,” She says, but she doesn’t sound like she means it.</p><p> </p><p>Sam holds out the smoothie he’d offered Jack. She stares at it, then looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. Maintaining eye contact, she reaches behind him and grabs the partially-full coffee pot.</p><p> </p><p>She directs her attention to the others and waves.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it’s the dark cloud that seems to be looming over Eileen’s head, maybe it’s that he wants to keep Cas from asking any more questions about Mrs. Butters, but Dean works up the courage to sign, <em>Good morning. </em>He also tries to sign, <em>Got a case of the Mondays? </em>But he’s not so sure it translated well.</p><p> </p><p>Over the edge of her coffee mug, Eileen’s eyes light up.</p><p> </p><p>She puts the mug down. “You learned ASL?” She asks, finger spelling the initialism.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh,” Jack says. He pauses to think for a second, eyes bulging out of his head. He collects himself. “We… Are… Trying?”</p><p> </p><p>Eileen’s nose twitches. “Close enough,” She says.</p><p> </p><p>“Anything for family,” Dean says, but the only word in the sentence he knows how to sign is <em>family, </em>so that’s what he says.</p><p> </p><p>Eileen lets out a long breath and blinks a few times. Behind her head, Sam signs, <em>Thank you.</em></p><p> </p><p>Dean is still far from perfect. His sentences are rudimentary at best, signing things like <em>toast, butter, please </em>and hoping it makes enough sense for Eileen to pass him the toast and the butter. She does, with upticked lips and soft lines around her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Jack and Cas, however, are impressive. Dean blames it on Jack’s grace and Cas’s four hundred billion or whatever years of life.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Jack dreams often of the car ride back from the silo. It’s all road and the gentle squeak of windshield wipers that desperately need to be replaced. Just outside the range of the headlights, the world is dark.</p><p> </p><p>Beside him, in the passenger seat, Sam is dialing furiously, pressing his phone to his ear for a few, breathless seconds, and then hanging up.</p><p> </p><p>“Dean’s not picking up.”</p><p> </p><p>“Have you tried calling Cas?”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s not answering, either.”</p><p> </p><p>Wipe. Wipe. Jack swallows.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe they’re just busy,” He supplies, and he hears Sam press more buttons on his phone.</p><p> </p><p>He blinks with the wipers. It wipes away raindrops, and he names his friends.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Charlie. Bobby. Donna. Lily.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He squints into the night and tries to remember what Dean taught him. Don’t choke up on the steering wheel too much, don’t stomp on her brakes, ease her into a faster speed, drive closer to the middle than the shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>(“Other cars can move, trees can’t.”)</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He thinks about when he was soulless. Without emotion, without want, or love, or guilt, there was still a crushing need to make the Winchesters proud of him. And now he’s staring down the barrel of God’s gun, every squeak of the windshield wipers bringing them a moment closer to... to what, he doesn’t know. The end, maybe. To Nothing.</p><p> </p><p>All he knows, right now, is the empty stretch of road ahead of him.</p><p> </p><p>He wakes to the smell of cooking bacon and Dean singing along to some classic rock song.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Dean falls back a few steps until he’s walking beside Claire. “What’s that look for?” </p><p>“What look?”</p><p>“You’re sulking.”</p><p>“I don’t sulk.” </p><p>Dean raises an eyebrow. She sighs.</p><p>“I’m not sulking.” She shoves her hands in her jacket pockets and refuses to meet his eye.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>okay a couple things 1) I wrote the scene where dean tells sam he's proud of him before the finale aired 2) I'm decently sure that in canon sam went to Stanford alone but I'm shitting on canon anyway, so.......... 3) I said this would be 2 chapters and I lied. It happens</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They find a cassette player buried under a pile of old CDs at the Goodwill. They’re there for clothes, because Cas has been wearing the same outfit for over a decade and doing laundry every single day got out of hand fast.</p><p> </p><p>(Especially since Cas severely overestimated just how much soap he needed to wash a single shirt and pair of pants and they’d spent the morning before ankle-deep in suds.)</p><p> </p><p>Shopping with him, as it turns out, is frustrating. He’s had no need to develop aesthetic— as Charlie would put it— or a basic idea of what he likes outside of the business casual beigeness that seems to plague every angel. He dresses for practicality.</p><p> </p><p>Cas’s arms end up full of dress shirts and pants as he stands in a miscellaneous aisle surrounded by a handful of records, a couple lamps, one of those beaded curtains from the seventies, and, of course, the cassette player.</p><p> </p><p>Something draws Cas to it. His hand reaches forward as if possessed, and he sweeps away the CDs that are thrown haphazardly over the top of it. It’s covered in dust, streaked from fingerprints and the hard plastic cases that had been sitting on it.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m getting this,” He decides, pulling it off the shelf.</p><p> </p><p>Dean blinks. “Uh. Okay?” He says, and doesn’t think about it again until he hears the guitar floating out from under Cas’s bedroom door. Curious, Dean peeks through the open gap in the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>Cas has piled his new clothes on his bed and is, it seems, trying to sort and fold them. Every single one of his dresser drawers is open. He’s considering two different socks, holding them up to the light and squinting.</p><p> </p><p>Dean moves to brace his hands on the doorframe, but his foot slips and he accidentally kicks it open.</p><p> </p><p>Cas whips around. Dean freezes.</p><p> </p><p>“I, uh—“ He clears his throat, tries to lean against the doorframe in a cool, bad-boy-sorta-way instead of <em>being caught watching his best-friend-that-he-told-he-loves-maybe-boyfriend </em>fold his laundry. “I heard Zeppelin.”</p><p> </p><p>Cas blinks, then nods. “I managed to get the cassette player to work,” He explains. “It was very dusty.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s—“</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the one you gave me, yes.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean swallows. He glances at the end table, where the player is. “I was going to say it’s <em>Stairway to Heaven.”</em></p><p> </p><p>“Oh. It’s that, too.”</p><p> </p><p>The eye contact is blinding. Cas breaks the silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like to dance?” He asks formally, stiff-shouldered. </p><p> </p><p>Dean blinks, nods.</p><p> </p><p>His mouth is dry, and his heart skips when Cas takes his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“You ever dance with anyone?” Dean asks when their fingers interlock.</p><p> </p><p>They aren’t dancing so much as they are stepping in a very slow circle. Dean has one hand on the juncture where Cas’s hip meets his abdomen.</p><p> </p><p>“Once or twice,” Cas says. He puts his hand just under the stalactite of Dean’s ribs. “A very long time ago.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean raises an eyebrow. “How long are we talking?”</p><p> </p><p>“Six thousand years or so.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>There’s a songbird who sings, sometimes all of our thoughts are misgivings.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Was it different?”</p><p> </p><p>Cas looks thoughtful for a moment. “Dancing for ritualistic purposes was very particular, but dancing like this…” He nods between them. “Was not uncommon.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean steps a little bit closer to Cas and he tries to imagine the past. Maybe in this bunker, maybe in caves, or gymnasiums, or docks, or saloons— dancing, just to be close to someone else for a little while. Someone who smells like sandalwood, whose palms tickle his ribs. To Elvis, or Bach, or Led Zeppelin, to the sound of rain.</p><p> </p><p>That’s something they all have in common— past, present, future— the need to not be alone.</p><p> </p><p>(And, God, does it hurt to be alone. He still dreams about the empty Earth. The stillness, the quiet, the despair. Everyone gone, because they wouldn’t play Bible.)</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t say any of that. He says, instead,</p><p> </p><p>“So you listen to the mixtape, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>Cas pulls his eyebrows together. “Of course I do, it was a gift.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” Dean hooks his chin over Cas’s shoulder. “It was.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“She’s happy you’re here,” Jody says, looking away from the field to glance at Sam and Dean.</p><p> </p><p>“She worked hard,” Sam says. “We’re proud of her.” He shifts, pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. “She get any job offers?”</p><p> </p><p>“She has an interview on Monday.”</p><p> </p><p>She sounds so proud it hurts. Relieved, even. It’s contagious. Dean imagines Alex when they found her, bait. A meal. Now, he’s squinting to pick her out of the crowd of students dressed in identical robes and hats.</p><p> </p><p>It’s an odd, warm feeling in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>He’d gone to Sam’s high school graduation, cheered loud enough for an entire family when his name had been called. Watched him shake hands with the principal and give some speech about perseverance or some other, similar bullshit. He hadn’t expected to end up back here, though, standing at the top of bleachers. It had felt like a one-time thing. A fluke.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s really excited,” Kaia says. She’s bright-eyed, splayed out on the bleachers, sitting with her arm pressed against Claire’s. In the broad light of day, she looks entirely different from the Kaia they’d pried from the Bad Place.</p><p> </p><p>She’s been doing good, too. Staying with Jody, sometimes hunting with Claire. She’d found stability.</p><p> </p><p>“She hasn’t stopped talking about it,” Claire agrees in a lower tone. “I’ve given so many mock interviews.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s because you’re tough,” Jody says, nudging her. “It’s good practice. Now shh— They’re calling names.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Alex makes eye contact with them, and then she bolts.</p><p> </p><p>Sam is closer, so she wraps her arms around him first.</p><p> </p><p>“Look at you,” Sam says. “College graduate.”</p><p> </p><p>She hugs Dean, deceptively strong.</p><p> </p><p>Dean thinks, T<em>his is what it can look like. She’s better than us.</em></p><p> </p><p>It was all Jody, all Alex, all… Determination and good parenting. Her graduation cap was askew, but she was grinning.</p><p> </p><p>She was going to be a nurse, help people. They hadn’t failed her.</p><p> </p><p>Fleetingly, Dean’s mind wanders to Bobby.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Dean falls back a few steps until he’s walking beside Claire. “What’s that look for?”</p><p> </p><p>“What look?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re sulking.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t <em>sulk.”</em></p><p> </p><p>Dean raises an eyebrow. She sighs.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sulking.” She shoves her hands in her jacket pockets and refuses to meet his eye.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re proud of you, too, you know.”</p><p> </p><p>Claire scoffs. “I’m not going to college,” she says, offhand. “I didn’t even graduate high school.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve made that clear.” Dean says it with a smile, but she just rolls her eyes. He shoulders her gently. “Hey, I didn’t go to college, I turned out fine.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow. She appraises him, and he frowns.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, that’s enough— who killed Hitler here?”</p><p> </p><p>“It always comes back to Hitler.”</p><p> </p><p>“When <em>you’ve</em> killed Hitler, you can tell me to shut up about it.”</p><p> </p><p>She hides her smile by staring at the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, kid…” Dean stops. “Go to college, don’t go to college… I don’t give a shit. I mean, look how Sammy turned out, and he went to an Ivy League.”</p><p> </p><p>She snorts, and looks over at where Sam is leaning against the passenger side door of the Impala, hunched to talk to Jody.</p><p> </p><p>Dean presses the tips of his fingers to her shoulder. “You’ve had it rough, alright? I’d be more concerned if you turned out perfect.”</p><p> </p><p>She kicks at gravel. “Yeah,” She tells the earth. “Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>“Besides, you’ve got a good family. You’ve got Kaia, you’ve got us— you’re gonna be fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“I get it,” Claire says, firmer. Her lips turn up. “Are you guys staying in town for the party tomorrow?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, we, uh. We’re taking a case in Minnesota.”</p><p> </p><p>She nods. “Then, you know, I guess I’ll be seeing you. Or whatever.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve got our numbers,” He reminds her. “Call us—“</p><p> </p><p>“If I need you. Yeah, I’ve got it. I should go…” Claire motions back, toward Jody’s car. She takes a step back. Hesitates, then pulls him in for a quick hug.</p><p> </p><p>“She okay?” Sam asks, when Dean crosses in front of the car to get to the driver’s side.</p><p> </p><p>“She will be,” Dean says, opening the door. “When she gets out of her own head. What are you thinking for dinner?”</p><p> </p><p>They get in the car, and suddenly Dean is twenty-two years old, gripping the steering wheel, sitting in a simmering silence as he drives the dark highways of California. The memory plants itself in his chest like a rock.</p><p> </p><p>Dad wouldn’t do it, so he’d been the one to drive Sam to college. They were on the edge of an argument— they always were back then. Sam had opened his mouth, and closed it more times than Dean could count, and the sharp breath was starting to get on his nerves so he’d snapped,</p><p> </p><p>“If you have something to say, just say it.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam rolled his eyes. There was a moment of hesitation, a hitch in his breath, then he said, “You could at least pretend to be happy for me.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean urged the gas pedal down a little further, gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’m driving you, aren’t I?”</p><p> </p><p>Sam made direct eye contact with the passenger’s side mirror. “Y’know, If I’d have known you were going to act like this, I would have taken a bus.”</p><p> </p><p>“You still can,” Dean said, but when he started veering Baby toward the shoulder of the road Sam scoffed.</p><p> </p><p>“Jesus, Dean. Whatever. Just drive.” He turned his attention out the passenger window.</p><p> </p><p>A long, cold moment passed. He could have let it go, could have made a joke or said nothing at all, but loneliness is a festering wound and Dean had never learned how to treat it, so he barked, “I don’t know what you want me to say, Sammy. Good for you? Congrats on being too good for us?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think I’m—“ Sam cut himself off with a sigh. “Is this really what you want, Dean? <em>Hunting?”</em></p><p> </p><p>“I <em>want,” </em>Dean corrected, merging lanes, “to catch whatever the fuck killed mom. And you should too, by the way.”</p><p> </p><p>“That was <em>eighteen years ago,</em> Dean. At what point is your life going to stop being some revenge plot—“</p><p> </p><p>“When there’s nothing else to avenge.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam sniffed. “This really doesn’t bother you?”</p><p> </p><p>“That you’re going to school? No.”</p><p> </p><p>“That this is what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean stares out the windshield. He can feel Sam’s gaze on him. Can sense the disappointment coming off of him in waves. The kid is too hopeful, has too much faith. “No,” He lies again. “It’s the right thing to do.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s going to kill you. You know that, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean reached over and turned up the radio volume. If Sam had anything else to say, it was drowned out by Lynyrd Skynyrd.</p><p> </p><p>The wound deepened.</p><p> </p><p>They drove the rest of the way without talking.</p><p> </p><p>Dean pulled up outside a dorm building. It was early, but it was still move-in day and there was a crowd. Cars were lined up outside of dorm buildings. Campus was littered with lamps, and boxes, and mini fridges. Sam had a duffle bag and a box. He unloaded the car without a word.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you have salt, and holy water, and guns—“</p><p> </p><p>Sam shot him a look, shushed him. “Yes, I have— Jesus, don’t say that so loud.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean threw his hands up in surrender. “Just checking.” He watched Sam pitch his bag over his shoulder and fumble with the box. “Look, I gotta get back before Dad wakes up. You good to take all that up yourself?”</p><p> </p><p>Sam pauses, arms still straining under the weight of the box. “Did you… Did you take Dad’s car without asking?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve gotta go,” Dean repeats, and Sam’s expression softened. He nodded, even smiled. Dean refused to give away the knot it eased in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll see you later, Dean.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good luck, man. Don’t let these rich assholes eat you alive.”</p><p> </p><p>When he pulled away, he watched out the rearview until he couldn’t make out Sam’s towering form anymore.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t think about possibilities, futures, universes where maybe he’s anything other than what he is. There’s nothing else to imagine, he knew it in his gut, even then, drumming his finger on the steering wheel while waiting for the red light to turn green.</p><p> </p><p>He drove the rest of the way back hankering for a drink, and the feeling only worsened when he found John waiting up for him.</p><p> </p><p>He looks at Sam now, eighteen years later, and forces himself to say, “I’m proud of you, Sammy.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam blinks and does a double take. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean clears his throat. “I said I’m proud of you. I should have said that a while ago.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam sucks his bottom lip in, looks at Dean and waits for a punchline. When one doesn’t come, he sighs. He maneuvers his lips into something akin to a smile. “I’m proud of you, too, man. Where did that come from?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean shrugs. He puts the car in gear. “Just thought about it. C’mon, where are we going for dinner?” </p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Cas squints at him over the mountain of pillows.</p><p> </p><p>“Have you ever kissed a man?” He asks suddenly. “Before me?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean lets out a long breath. He rolls onto his back and traces a crack in the ceiling with his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>“But you’ve thought about it?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth. Thinks.</p><p> </p><p>It isn’t as simple as saying yes or no. He’d grown up with guns, and cars, and magazines with half-naked women on the covers. He’d had his first kiss probably too young, had sex that way too, in the back of Summer Rollins’s ’86 Sedan. It was before he’d even had a real growth spurt, he was still chubby-fingered and soft-shouldered. He probably hadn’t been very good at it.</p><p> </p><p>The first time he’d ever seen a man who made him feel the same way as Summer (and Katie, and Linda, and Carrie, and Joyce, and—) was when he was fourteen years old, staring into a jewelry case and trying to figure out how he could sneak a diamond ring out of it. It would sell for a pretty penny in a pawn shop, and maybe he could get Sammy something nice for his birthday, something that wasn’t made to kill.</p><p> </p><p>The guy reminded Dean of Clint Eastwood, with his dark hair and sharp features. He appeared almost out of nowhere, one second Dean was alone, the next the guy was leaning over the counter, placing himself between Dean and the sparkle of the ring.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I help you, man,” He asked with a crooked smile. “Or are you just window shopping?”</p><p> </p><p>For a second, Dean’s breath caught in his throat. The guy was close, his face just a half foot away from Dean’s. Dean got a whiff of his cologne just before he pulled back.</p><p><br/>He was well dressed, in dress slacks and a button-up, sleeves rolled just below his elbows. There was a leather jacket thrown over the back of the chair behind him, though, and a clear strain on his shirt when he squared his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>Dean still hadn’t replied.</p><p> </p><p>The guy raised an eyebrow. “You looking for anything in particular?”</p><p> </p><p>And Dean thought, <em>He knows. </em>And he thought it about the fact that he was contemplating stealing, nothing else, but it still left a rancid taste in his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t take the ring. Sam got a pocket knife for his birthday.</p><p> </p><p>There were the movies, old westerns, <em>Grease, Back to the Future. </em>He was aware of it in a tangential way, in his periphery. How sometimes his stomach would knot up a guy would smile at him. How he wanted to be John Wayne so bad that sometimes it felt like he was bursting at the seams. How, sometimes, a guy would lock eyes with him from across the bar and he’d feel that feeling again, <em>he knows, </em>and he’d throw back his whiskey and find a cute waitress to hit on.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t talk about it. Not with Sam, or Bobby, and definitely not with John.</p><p> </p><p>Then there was Benny, the lines of whose face Dean found himself following in the glow of the fire. They tended to sit closer together than most people, held each other by the jaw when they were injured. That was it, though, and that was Purgatory. A place with no hope.</p><p> </p><p>He’d never pictured himself kissing another man, not in the casual way he’d thought about women. Hadn’t pictured kissing Cas until he’d actually done it. Hadn’t considered it an option.</p><p> </p><p>And then, of course, he had, and now it’s all he ever thinks about. The remnants of prayer, he supposes. <em>Cas, Cas, Cas.</em></p><p> </p><p>Kissing Cas, when they’re covered in washing machine suds. Kissing Cas before bed. Kissing Cas when they cross paths in the hallway, or the kitchen, or the study.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve thought about kissing you,” Dean says, because it’s the closest to a straight answer he can come up with.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“So, who was going to tell me you guys are famous?” Charlie muses over dinner one week. She asks low enough that the other half of the table can’t hear her.</p><p> </p><p>“For my charming looks?” Dean asks, mouth full.</p><p> </p><p>Charlie frowns at him. “No, for dying a bunch of times.”</p><p> </p><p>She holds the book up, and Sam winces. “Where did you get that?” He reaches for it, but she pulls it away.</p><p> </p><p>“I saw it at Barnes and Noble. There was a whole display for you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Chuck’s been keeping busy.” Dean shoves another forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. “Let me guess, it’s the one where God finally goes rogue.” When he holds out his hand, Charlie hands it over.</p><p> </p><p>The cover is a drawing of the two of them standing in front of Baby. They’re swarmed on all sides by ghosts. On a barn behind them, the shape of wings is burnt into the wood.</p><p> </p><p>The title reads,<em> Supernatural: The End of the Road</em></p><p> </p><p>Dean clears his throat. “Well, that doesn’t bode well.” He slides the book over to Sam.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Sam agrees. “It doesn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“Get this,” Charlie says. “It’s told from God’s perspective.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean’s face falls. “No.”</p><p> </p><p>She leans back in her chair and nods. “Uh-huh,” She says with her tongue behind her bottom lip. “And you guys—“ she points between them. “Are the villains.”</p><p> </p><p>“Which of his drafts do you think it is?” Dean watches Sam’s eyes skim over the past few pages. He makes a disgusted face.</p><p> </p><p>“None of the ones I saw. This is just…”</p><p> </p><p>“A crock of shit?” Dean asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Revenge porn?” Charlie offers.</p><p> </p><p>Sam nods. “You’re not wrong. No, I was gonna say… graphic.”</p><p> </p><p>“Your death scenes would win horror fiction awards,” Charlie agrees.</p><p> </p><p>“So who kills who?” Dean asks, leaning forward to get a look at the blurb at the back of the book. “I kill Sam, God kills me kind of deal?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, uh…” Sam clears his throat. “You kill Cas and then…” Dean stiffens. Sam flips the page. “And then the rest is… Open for interpretation.”</p><p> </p><p>“There are shirts that say <em>Dean shot first,” </em>Charlie explains. “And ones that say <em>Sam shot first. </em>And the subreddit has a lot of theories about <em>demon blood, </em>but I have no idea what that’s about. It actually got piss-poor reviews online.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam slams the book shut. “You know, it really doesn’t matter,” He decides. “It didn’t happen.”</p><p> </p><p>“You aren’t even a little curious?” Jack asks.</p><p> </p><p>Dean grabs the book and tosses it to him. “You wanna know what Chuck came up with, knock yourself out. I’m done with his stories.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Eileen spends a lot of time digging through the Men of Letters’ archives.</p><p> </p><p>She’s trying to piece her life together through redacted documents and shoddy memories.</p><p> </p><p>There’s not much about her grandfather. There’s a few photos with him in them, a few loose records from random hunts. She knows that he’d killed a handful of vampires, that he’d (if the photos are any indication) gotten decently drunk at a Christmas party, and that he once saved a young couple from a Djinn.</p><p> </p><p>There’s some letters, too, from after he’d moved to Ireland. He’d been friendly enough with some of the members to keep in touch.</p><p> </p><p>He talked about her mother, mostly. How she’d been getting along well in Ireland— he’d been worried about that. It’s a big change. He talked about teaching her spells, about how he almost wished she wouldn’t have to know about the bitter dangers in the world.</p><p> </p><p>He speaks of her fondly. Regretfully, even, as if the reality of his life was coming into stark focus.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t say anything about whether or not she’d wanted to join the organization, and she’d been too young for Eileen’s father to even come up, but there’s a photo of her: pigtailed and grinning. Eileen tucks it into the corner of her dresser mirror.</p><p> </p><p>She wonders, idly, if this is what her grandfather had wanted for her. To live in the bunker, to kill monsters. If, maybe, he’d hoped for Maura’s discretion. If he’d ever hoped that a normal life was in the cards for them.</p><p> </p><p>Then she wonders if he’d be proud she’d never made revenge her cornerstone, even if it had molded her into a hunter, even if getting it had felt like an epiphany.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Dean wakes up to the smell of burning rubber. There’s a thin, smoky fog in the hallway, and he follows it into the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you burning tires in here?” He asks from the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m… cooking,” Cas says.</p><p> </p><p>“Like hell you are.”</p><p> </p><p>“It doesn’t taste as bad as it smells,” Jack offers from the table, though the plate of food (can it even be called that? It looks more like compost) isn’t even half eaten.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like to try some?” Cas holds up the smoking pan. Dean swears he hears something rattle.</p><p> </p><p>Sam meets Dean’s eye and subtly shakes his head.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I’m gonna pass,” Dean says.</p><p> </p><p>Cas’s eyebrows furrow, but he doesn’t argue, just puts the pan back on the stovetop.</p><p> </p><p>“Where’s Eileen that she’s missing out on this… lovely breakfast?” Dean asks, plugging his nose to grab the coffeepot.</p><p> </p><p>“Working a case with Donna.” Sam picks at his food. “There’s a, uh, poltergeist in Montana.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t aware there was anything in Montana.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam shrugs. “Get this, though. A family in New Jersey was found with their lungs ripped out and their bodies, quote, ‘drained of blood.’”</p><p> </p><p>“So, what? Vamps?”</p><p> </p><p>“Could be. Or a very thirsty cannibal?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean grimaces. “Worth checking out either way.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“You know anything about tracking down ghosts?” Sam asks one day over lunch.</p><p> </p><p>Dean raises an eyebrow. “Dude, just use Tinder.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam rolls his eyes. “I want to find Kevin. It just… It doesn’t sit right with me that he’s…” He waves his hand. “And I figured that, y’know, with Jack—“</p><p> </p><p>“We beam him up to Heaven.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, basically.” Sam clears his throat. “Jack seems to think he can do it, which means we just have to find him.”</p><p> </p><p>“One problem.”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p> </p><p>“He could be anywhere.”</p><p> </p><p>Which, fair. Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I got that, Dean.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure you’re okay with giving me cooking lessons?” Cas asks. “I don’t want to monopolize your time.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have much going on right now,” Sam says, and the sentence weirdly relieves him. “Plus, it would probably be good for all of us if you…” He thinks back to Cas’s charred breakfast. “Knew the basics.”</p><p> </p><p>Cas isn’t a slow learner, but common sense isn’t built into his brain the way it is theirs. Despite his past brushes with humanity, it’s habit to grab a hot cast-iron pan, and it doesn’t occur to him that if he starts smelling natural gas he should turn the stove off.</p><p> </p><p>Self preservation is different, Sam supposes as he watches Cas hack away at an onion with tears welling in the corners of his eyes, when the only thing that can kill you is a specially-made metal. Angelic kryptonite.</p><p> </p><p>Except, he’s not an angel anymore, and the knife is inching uncomfortably close to his fingertips.</p><p> </p><p>Sam clears his throat. “Okay, so maybe be a little bit more careful—“</p><p> </p><p>He teaches him to curl his fingers back so it’s his knuckles exposed instead of the soft flesh of his fingers. He also teaches him to hold the onion from way, way farther back.</p><p> </p><p>Mostly, though, he thinks about how aggravating it must be to be so fragile when you aren’t raised it. Cas is four billion years old, but he could die from a tumble down the stairs, or a poorly-placed paper cut; A splinter that goes unnoticed and travels in just the right direction into his bloodstream; one hamburger too many; cutting his finger on a piece of rusty metal. </p><p> </p><p>“You know… I enjoy eating again,” Cas says as the onion begins to sizzle. He adds, as if he’d been reading Sam’s mind. “Being human is not without its benefits.” Then, out of nowhere, “But time is weird.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam blinks. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Time for humans, it’s so… Linear.” When Sam doesn’t respond he adds, “When I was an angel I came to terms with the fact that everything goes away. It’s how things <em>work, </em>and eventually I would be…” He clears his throat. “Things move faster now.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not immortal anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Cas pauses. “No,” He says. “I guess I’m not.” He sniffs, then adds. “But that’s okay.” He stares down into the pan. “Who taught you to cook?”</p><p> </p><p>Sam leans his forearms on the counter. “Dean taught me a little bit. But, uh, motel rooms don’t usually have stoves, so I didn’t learn how to cook with an actual kitchen until college. My girlfriend—“</p><p> </p><p>“Jessica?”</p><p> </p><p>Sam’s heart stutters. Even now, he swears he smells smoke. “Yeah, Jess.” He swallows. “She was obsessed with those Food Network cooking shows.”</p><p> </p><p>It had made for a lot of budgeted date nights: being in the kitchen, together, finding a rhythm beside each other. Studying, with <em>Ace of Cakes </em>or <em>Iron Chef </em>on in the background.</p><p> </p><p>He adds, “She was always a better cook than me.” The smell of smoke gets stronger.His chest tightens. He watches Cas idly stir the sautéing onions. “Hey, can I ask you… Why do you wanna learn to cook so bad?”</p><p> </p><p>Cas looks at him, confused. “Dean cooks for me all the time,” He says, as if it were the obvious answer.</p><p> </p><p>Sam nods. He wracks his brain and tries to put together a coherent response but what comes out is, “Hey, are you burning that?”</p><p> </p><p>Cas looks back at the pan and then jerks it off the flame. “It… appears so.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam lets out a low breath. “It’s fine— it’s just… more flavor.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>anyway!!! Thanks for reading! If you wanna come talk to me about supernatural I'm on Tumblr @charliebradburyourgays !</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The second half of this should be up soon, since it's almost done! Feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr</p></blockquote></div></div>
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